Burning Bright (Peaked #3)

[Lavos]

Just saying, this team is really Fire weak, especially to Heatran. Yes, I know you have Air Balloon Heatran to check it, but it can switch in on 4/6 of your team with no worries whatsoever (I guess they have to watch out for Superpower and HP Ground, but that's about it). In return, if Heatran goes down, it can pretty much just come in and spam Fire Blasts and shit will die immediately. You're also horrendously weak to Volcarona. I'd suggest replacing one of your Pokemon for Dragonite, since he can check both of them relatively easily and has good type synergy with sun teams in general. I'd recommend either CB or DD Lum with Earthquake to take down Heatran with.

Good luck and have fun.

Yeah, I know I'm weak to Heatran, it's definitely the #1 problem for my team and I'm glad someone finally recognized that. However, I consider myself a damn good prediction artist, and thus can usually outmaneuver opposing Heatran into taking an Earth Power, Superpower, or Hidden Power Ground, all 3 of which will KO it. It's never been a really huge problem...in fact, the only times this team really loses at all are when a) I fuck up my predictions, or b) hax and lots of it.

And yes, you guessed it, Volcarona is my second-worst pet peeve. A couple of Quiver Dances and it wrecks shit, especially if it's carrying the destructive, albiet uncommon, HP Ground. QD as Heatran comes in, Bug Buzz, HP Ground, and it's essentially gg for me. That's why I have Ninetales, which can take anything Volc can possibly throw at it, even at +2, and phaze it with Roar. Not to mention the fact that if I see an opposing Volcarona, I am extremely careful about getting hazards up. That helps me a lot, as Heatran alone can easily beat a Volcarona that's been weakened by rocks.

Thanks for the rate, you really seem to understand this team.

@ Dzreams: No.

@ Dk Law: Landorus is bleh. I hate it and have sworn to never ever use it again unless absolutely necessary. Besides, I don't need a Scarfer, I have Victreebel.

 

[BTzz]

Hey man got the request. This is an excellent team that does a great job at utilizing some very underrated mons and sets so good job with that (and the peak :o). As you, and others have mentioned, Volcarona and Heatran will give your team some problems, but you have proven that you can beat them with your current line up so the changes I suggest will be minimal. About Volcarona, you could use Quick attack over Pursuit on Scizor. This gives you a nice way of revege killing Volcarona, and while you do lose out on the trap against Celebi and Lati@s, Celebi doesn't threaten your team at all. Without Pursuit, Lati@s become more problematic, so I suggest using a bulkier Heatran spread. Modest; 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 Spe is what I'm thinking, although you might want more Speed EVs to ensure you outspeed opposing specially defensive variants of Heatran. With this spread you can take Draco Meteors better, while maintaining Heatran's power. You won't really miss Heatran's speed as Gliscor is handled by Rotom-W, and it can't switch-in to the rest of your team bar Scizor. Next I'm goiing to recommend using Sleep Powder over Growth on Victreebel, controversial change I know, but from using it Victeebell is quite capable of sweeping without Growth, plus you have Espeon to pass Calm Minds to it. Sleep Powder allows you to cripple Heatran, meanig after it easily switches in possibly obtaining a Flash Fire boost, you won't have to worry about taking a hit from it, which is currently almost impossible for you. Instead you can switch to something that forces it out. Finally, I recommend using Toxic over Energy Ball on Ninetales. Toxic makes SubCM Latias and Volcarona much more managable and while it doesn't deal with them as efficiently as Eball, it still hurts Quagsire, Politoed and Gastrodon. Gastrodon is set-up bait for Espeon anyway and Rotom-W can swtich into and cripple Quagsire with WoW.

tl; dr

- Quick Attack > Pursuit on Scizor for Volcarona
- Bulkier Heatran spread for Volcarona and Lati@s
- Sleep Powder > Growth and Victreebell for Heatran
- Toxic > Energy Ball on Ninetales for CM Latias and Volcarona

Just some stuff to consider. Good luck with the team!

 

[Lavos]

Hey man got the request. This is an excellent team that does a great job at utilizing some very underrated mons and sets so good job with that (and the peak :o). As you, and others have mentioned, Volcarona and Heatran will give your team some problems, but you have proven that you can beat them with your current line up so the changes I suggest will be minimal. About Volcarona, you could use Quick attack over Pursuit on Scizor. This gives you a nice way of revege killing Volcarona, and while you do lose out on the trap against Celebi and Lati@s, Celebi doesn't threaten your team at all. Without Pursuit, Lati@s become more problematic, so I suggest using a bulkier Heatran spread. Modest; 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 Spe is what I'm thinking, although you might want more Speed EVs to ensure you outspeed opposing specially defensive variants of Heatran. With this spread you can take Draco Meteors better, while maintaining Heatran's power. You won't really miss Heatran's speed as Gliscor is handled by Rotom-W, and it can't switch-in to the rest of your team bar Scizor. Next I'm goiing to recommend using Sleep Powder over Growth on Victreebel, controversial change I know, but from using it Victeebell is quite capable of sweeping without Growth, plus you have Espeon to pass Calm Minds to it. Sleep Powder allows you to cripple Heatran, meanig after it easily switches in possibly obtaining a Flash Fire boost, you won't have to worry about taking a hit from it, which is currently almost impossible for you. Instead you can switch to something that forces it out. Finally, I recommend using Toxic over Energy Ball on Ninetales. Toxic makes SubCM Latias and Volcarona much more managable and while it doesn't deal with them as efficiently as Eball, it still hurts Quagsire, Politoed and Gastrodon. Gastrodon is set-up bait for Espeon anyway and Rotom-W can swtich into and cripple Quagsire with WoW.

tl; dr

- Quick Attack > Pursuit on Scizor for Volcarona
- Bulkier Heatran spread for Volcarona and Lati@s
- Sleep Powder > Growth and Victreebell for Heatran
- Toxic > Energy Ball on Ninetales for CM Latias and Volcarona

Just some stuff to consider. Good luck with the team!

Thanks for the rate, dude. Some of this stuff you mentioned could really help.

So first of all, on the Quick Attack > Pursuit thing and changing Heatran to a bulky set...well, I don't know how I feel about that. Just the thought of having to force my team to take repeated STAB Draco Meteors to the face makes me shudder. Not being able to Pursuit Latios, I think, is a worse fate than only being able to do 35% to Volc with Scizor priority. I never let Volc get to +2 anyways, where it can be an actual threat.

The bulky Heatran spread, though, is a pretty good idea. Heatran doesn't really need max Speed, though it is nice to catch a boost with Flash Fire and then be able to straight up 2HKO any Rotom-W switch-ins...I'll need to consider this.

Sleep Powder on Victreebel, you say? Preposterous! This is blasphemy! What's a Sun sweeper without Growth?!...In all seriousness, though, this isn't a bad idea. Only one problem: it makes my team incredibly weak to the pink blobs. From there, I only have Scizor to dispatch them, and that's a completely unreliable strategy. So no, I can't make that change.

Toxic > Energy Ball on Ninetales makes sense, I can then still deal with Gastrodon and Quagsire while annoying any Rotom-W that's stupid enough to switch in, too. Double status is pretty much the only thing Tales can do anyways...such a bad weather starter u_u. (changing eball to toxic atm)

Thanks BTzz! ;D

 

[Smogbunny]

You could switch HP Ice on Victreebel with Ground so you can nuke Heatran and then have HP Ice on Rotom in place of Sunny Day or Hydro Pump so you have the Rotom switch in which will fodder their belief that you don't have Hydro Pump on a sun team, in which case you then murder with HP Ice.

boo

Anyway, lovely team for such a lovely battler. You are duh bess in duh worl. Luvdisc'd.

 

[Lavos]

You could switch HP Ice on Victreebel with Ground so you can nuke Heatran and then have HP Ice on Rotom in place of Sunny Day or Hydro Pump so you have the Rotom switch in which will fodder their belief that you don't have Hydro Pump on a sun team, in which case you then murder with HP Ice.

boo

Anyway, lovely team for such a lovely battler. You are duh bess in duh worl. Luvdisc'd.

HP Ground on Victreebel would be roflicious, except I would just use EQ Venusaur instead if I wanted that. The whole point of Victreebel is its dual Fire-Ice coverage, which is why I don't use Venusaur instead.

and technically, I'm the 3rd best in the world :3 ty for the rate hun

 

[Zaimin]

I have been messing around with this team for a while now and i must say i like it very much. I just have a few questions for you and if they have been responded to in the text earlier then feel free to call me a douche bag and i will reed the whole thing extra carefully one more time :)

Anyway.

Have you tried running a Choice specs set with ninetails with overheat, energyball and hp ground instead?
How do you counter life orb latias with hp fire?
And do you never feel that heatran is just to darn slow? I surprice a lot of people by running a choice scarf set with SR. And once that baloon is popped it's easy to revenge kill.
For a while I also used a Specialy defencive metagross with choice band, ice punch persuit, earthquake and bullet punch

I have no doubt that you manage this team just perfect the way it is, the peak is sort of an indication to that, but for us less experienced battelers, do you think any of this makes sence?

Apologize for any misspelling
/Zaimin

 

[alexwolf]

Amazing team, and congrats on your peak!

This is not a rate just wanting to say something about your Victreebel description.
What really sets apart Victreebel from Venusaur is not the Ice-Fire-Grass combo but the ability to heal of damage with Giga Drain, which gives it the ability to beat the blobs. Venusaur already beats every OU Dragon after SR with Sludge Bomb already so HP Ice does not provide any real advantage.

 

[Lavos]

I have been messing around with this team for a while now and i must say i like it very much. I just have a few questions for you and if they have been responded to in the text earlier then feel free to call me a douche bag and i will reed the whole thing extra carefully one more time :)

Anyway.

Have you tried running a Choice specs set with ninetails with overheat, energyball and hp ground instead?
How do you counter life orb latias with hp fire?
And do you never feel that heatran is just to darn slow? I surprice a lot of people by running a choice scarf set with SR. And once that baloon is popped it's easy to revenge kill.
For a while I also used a Specialy defencive metagross with choice band, ice punch persuit, earthquake and bullet punch

I have no doubt that you manage this team just perfect the way it is, the peak is sort of an indication to that, but for us less experienced battelers, do you think any of this makes sence?

Apologize for any misspelling
/Zaimin

First of all, thanks for the compliments, they mean a lot to me. Now to your ideas:

- No, I have never considered a Specs set on Ninetales, and I don't plan to. Ninetales' ability to cripple opposing weather starters with status is pretty much the only thing it's useful for. It would be nice to be able to beat Heatran with tales, though.

- Life Orb Latias, or any Latias really, is the biggest bitch for this team to face. Luckily, most CM sets don't run HP Fire as well, otherwise they're just begging for status in the face. So if it's HP Fire, that means I go to Heatran. Standard Latias can take up to 45% or something from a Sun-boosted Fire Blast; once I get a Flash Fire boost, it can't withstand me. And of course, if it doesn't have HP Fire, I use Scizor.

- Yes, Heatran's middling Speed is annoying, but it's enough to outspeed what I want to outspeed. I am not running a Scarf set because a) I want Rocks support, and b) Air Balloon gives me a bit of protection from Dugtrio, who is obnoxious.

Thanks again for the rate.

Amazing team, and congrats on your peak!

This is not a rate just wanting to say something about your Victreebel description.
What really sets apart Victreebel from Venusaur is not the Ice-Fire-Grass combo but the ability to heal of damage with Giga Drain, which gives it the ability to beat the blobs. Venusaur already beats every OU Dragon after SR with Sludge Bomb already so HP Ice does not provide any real advantage.

I disagree. What sets Victreebel apart is most definitely the ability to have triple-type coverage. Beating the pink blobs is nice and all, but Venusaur can run a SubSeed set and demolish them just as effectively, albiet in an unorthodox manner. Also, Venusaur does not OHKO Dragonite after rocks with Sludge Bomb, even if it's Life Orb. Then Dragonite's Fire Punch will be a guaranteed OHKO in Sun if it's running max Attack.

 

[Zaimin]

- Yes, Heatran's middling Speed is annoying, but it's enough to outspeed what I want to outspeed. I am not running a Scarf set because a) I want Rocks support, and b) Air Balloon gives me a bit of protection from Dugtrio, who is obnoxious.

Thanks again for the rate.

I actually run Stealth Rocks with a scarf, early game everybody switches into a counter to Heatran so i get a free SR I then switch out because that would be normal thing to do and i come in late game and surprise everyone.

Works annoyingly well :)

Atleast thats what seems to work for me, i'm simply not good enough not not let my balloon pop early in the game.

Dugtrio i can usually put a Will-O-Whisp on that thing, and I don't seem to run in that thing a lot.

Thanks for the feedback though
/Zaimin

 

[dice]

My own version of the team, as I built it with Lavos since I was tutoring him, has a bulky offensive Heatran with 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 Spe @ Air Balloon.

I prefer this since I can still tank Dragon hits and hit hard in return, try that out, Zaimin!

 

[Lavos]

My own version of the team, as I built it with Lavos since I was tutoring him, has a bulky offensive Heatran with 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 Spe @ Air Balloon.

I prefer this since I can still tank Dragon hits and hit hard in return, try that out, Zaimin!

I'm really not a huge fan of this one as it leaves me far too susceptible to fast Scizors, Adamant Toxicroak, etc., but I suppose it's a good set if you're not satisfied with Heatran's bulk. I just personally dislike slow Pokemon.

 

[alexwolf]

I disagree. What sets Victreebel apart is most definitely the ability to have triple-type coverage. Beating the pink blobs is nice and all, but Venusaur can run a SubSeed set and demolish them just as effectively, albiet in an unorthodox manner. Also, Venusaur does not OHKO Dragonite after rocks with Sludge Bomb, even if it's Life Orb. Then Dragonite's Fire Punch will be a guaranteed OHKO in Sun if it's running max Attack.

With the SubSeed set Venusuar cannot sweep teams though. And after SR, +2 LO Sludge Bomb OHKOes any Dnite except from + 252/252 version, which are very rare.

 

[Hammerne]

Hello, Im new here on smogon and I really fell in love with this team the moment I saw it.
I would like to give a few suggestions and I would also like you to reply to them, they will be nooby, because im Really new to competitive pokemon

In my opinion, espeons the weakest link and if this team wants to be improved I at least would try other pokemon on espeons place just to see how it goes. Espeons great and the team work well with her and I personally LOVE passin +1-2 CM to heatran and have him rape everything but its a problem with spike stackers who can take a beating(like deoxis-d) that rapid spinners start to feel necessary.

The best rapid spinners in my opinion are: Defensive Cloyster, Hitmontop, Donphan, Forretress, Starmie and Tentacruel.

I doubt forretres and tentacruel would work really well on this team and defensrive cloyster is good to check dragons but you already have victribel and heatran who can do that and shi SDef is just plain shit. Starmie would be good check to heatran to some extent(he is REALLY annoying, I cant blow through teams with victri only because of him ;_;) and she would have that golden fighting resist that espeon has, but I think she is a little too frail, you already have rotom who is a water type and she wouldnt like her water stab nerfed by sun.

The ones that remain are hitmontop and donphan, which in my would suit this team best.( ill leave some calculations, but im a noob with the damage calculator so they might be wrong, I used the one that is on the smogon page which doesnt have genV mon yet, so if you know a calculator that has gen v mon please tell me n_n)

I only have 1 set to hitmontop with a few slashes, he has good resistances to bug, rock(f)uck you terrakion), can but pressure on Ttar, can mess with jellicent with toxic, can bring sun(which would free a slot for rotom-w, or use sun on both if you want), he can take physical and special beating(which i think annoyed you a little about donphan, the fact that he dies easily to special attack) but has lesser power than donphan and cant check the dragons so well, even though he has like 10 priority moves avaible.

The set I would suggest is

Hitmontop (M) @ Leftovers Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef
Impish Nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Close Combat/Hi jump kick

- Rapid Spin
- Toxic/Sunny day/Foresight/Priority/Equake/Fake out/Protect

- Toxic/Sunny day/Foresight/Priority/Equake/Fake out/Protect

Yes, a lot os slashes.The set maximizes physical bulk and is meant to spin and take physical beating, for the special side you already have ninetales. even though this is a physically defensive set it can take some special beating too. Rapid spin to get rid of entry hazards, Stab of choice, one if you prefer accuracy, and the other if you dislike the defense drop and if one wants extra power. Now the crazy slashes, I wont deny that some are more important than others but I put all of them because he really has a lot of options:

-Sunny day for the weather wars, freeing pressure from ninetales
-Foresight so that you can spin on jellicent and gengar
-Toxic so you can cripple some set-up sweepers without lum or sub/annoying jellicent/DIE VOLCARONA
- I hate enemy heatran so I threw Equake there, because why not(it wont do a lot though so i dont really recommend this)
- Priority if you want priority, no ice shard for dragons though, and the priority wont do much
-fake out to be annoying
- Protect to scout

If you test this and test with sunny day, I would recommend on putting pain split on rotom-w, or hidden power, I prefer pain split because I love the move. This takes less damage from physical attacks than donphan, and has a good typing, which donphan also has.

Donphan (M) @ Leftovers Trait: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 128 Atk / 128 Def
Impish Nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Rapid Spin
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Ice Shard


This is the set that the guy from the first page posted, and I prefer this to a set with 252 def EV because that would basically make him a worser Hitmontop with only a bit more of attack. The moves are pretty obvios, rapid spin por spinnning, rocks because they're rocks, eartquake for stab, heatran and all that and ice shard for revenging dragons. If you test this set I would suggest that you also try putting metal sound to heatran, I promise its so freaking funny to metal sound switch ins and kill everything.


I personally prefer hitmontop because of stronger bulk but I do really miss sturdy, equake and ice shard some thimes. I would like you to test these and give your opinion

 

[Lavos]

hitmontop and donphan stuff

Donphan has been suggested before, see above as to why I'm not using it.

Hitmontop is an unorthodox suggestion. I might actually try it out in place of Espeon. It being able to take a Stone Edge will be something very beneficial to my team, as Banded Terrakion is one of its greatest weaknesses.

I'll get back to you on this. Thank you for your compliments and suggestions!

 

[Conduit]

Expect me to rate a Sun team, when I clearly fail with them? ;)
Yeah, so first off, I don't care about Magic Bounce, but let's be real if Espeon is down, then Hazards just eat this team up, why not run a Bulky Spinner such as Donphan in place of Espeon? I mean it could help deal with SubVeil Gliscor who could eat this team alive easily. I've done it before, so you can't argue :DDDD (It wasn't you using it ofc.)

Edit :You lose to Terrakion and Dnite(Full Hp)

Anyway, if you mispredict with Rocks, for example, and there is some random Terrakion with Stealth Rock, what do you do then? :/ (Okay now I'm just prolonging this rate with bs lol)

In all seriousness, please have more than ONE Earthquake counter. I mean Rotom-W isn't going to do Jack to SubSmackdown Landorus. Try adding in Air Balloon on Ninetales, since it could possibly outspeed, or make Rotom scarf, and keep that Sunny Day. You can trick that Scarf later.

Anyway, another problem is that after you lose Scizor, it opens the road to a full Tyranitar Onslaught, especially now that there are a ridiculous amount of Babiri Berry Tars running Fire punch, thanks to Shake it up (I think that's the name)
Furthermore, this is a REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEALLLLLYYY good Sun team, and I will definitely use it once in a while because I get bored of my teams more often then Blink :O.

Yeah, nice job man, I don't think I've seen other Sun teams like it, not saying much because I never have the time. Haha, I'm kidding. I truly love this team, great job and keep up the good work, and for future ref... don't collab with Princess Bri or he'll steal a team and give it to you with 4 Evs misplaced.

Kthxbye.

 

[XxBladexX]

NPC U MEANIE!!!!! >:(
Anyway, great team and stuff. I can't really think of anything to suggest since people have already suggested a lot of stuff. (:|) Anyway, I just had to post on this...
So yeah...
(ps: stop calling me a *******) <3

Oh and also, I commented on this late because I couldn't log onto my old name so I had to make a whole new one.

 

[mike2084]

I noticed you said something about your Rotom-W having no form of recovery. You could always try a Life Orb SubSplit set on it, and just replace Substitute with Sunny Day to keep the utility and originality of it.

Rotom-W @ Life Orb
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 236 SAtk / 20 SDef / 252 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Volt Switch
- Hydro Pump
- Sunny Day
- Pain Split

You could also put it at Timid nature I would think, if you think this set is a bit on the slow side.

 

[Lavos]

Expect me to rate a Sun team, when I clearly fail with them? ;)
Yeah, so first off, I don't care about Magic Bounce, but let's be real if Espeon is down, then Hazards just eat this team up, why not run a Bulky Spinner such as Donphan in place of Espeon? I mean it could help deal with SubVeil Gliscor who could eat this team alive easily. I've done it before, so you can't argue :DDDD (It wasn't you using it ofc.)

Edit :You lose to Terrakion and Dnite(Full Hp)

Anyway, if you mispredict with Rocks, for example, and there is some random Terrakion with Stealth Rock, what do you do then? :/ (Okay now I'm just prolonging this rate with bs lol)

In all seriousness, please have more than ONE Earthquake counter. I mean Rotom-W isn't going to do Jack to SubSmackdown Landorus. Try adding in Air Balloon on Ninetales, since it could possibly outspeed, or make Rotom scarf, and keep that Sunny Day. You can trick that Scarf later.

Anyway, another problem is that after you lose Scizor, it opens the road to a full Tyranitar Onslaught, especially now that there are a ridiculous amount of Babiri Berry Tars running Fire punch, thanks to Shake it up (I think that's the name)
Furthermore, this is a REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEALLLLLYYY good Sun team, and I will definitely use it once in a while because I get bored of my teams more often then Blink :O.

Yeah, nice job man, I don't think I've seen other Sun teams like it, not saying much because I never have the time. Haha, I'm kidding. I truly love this team, great job and keep up the good work, and for future ref... don't collab with Princess Bri or he'll steal a team and give it to you with 4 Evs misplaced.

Kthxbye.

I have no idea why I don't just use Donphan. I guess it's because of spinblockers or some such thing, Jellicent and Gengar especially can be a pain and I just prefer the instant trollishness of not only being able to prevent hazards on my side, but force them onto my opponent's side. Sub-Smack-Down Landorus is a pain in the ass. Donphan would really help me here, yes. Also SubVeil Gliscor makes me rofl as anyone who plays this team correctly can handle it.

In summation, thank you for the rate my good sir. I'll test Donphan. Meh. This team got #3, it can't be that bad, right? xD

Blade, you're fat.

Mike, Rotom-W is beautiful just the way it is and don't need no Life Orb or Pain Split to make it better.

 

[Lavos]

Ba-dump. Gonna add a threatlist soon, just to make this RMT a little more comprehensive. I noticed someone nominated this team for the archives, thanks a bunch to whoever did that. :p